Portfolio
Contents
It is as if you were doing work (2017)
It is as if you were playing chess (2016)
Disaffective Computing #1: Not-Food (2016)
It is as if you were doing work (2016)
A game posing as an application from a near future in which robots have taken over most human labour, leaving many humans in enforced leisure and a corresponding sense of a lack of usefulness. The application enables the player to pretend to be performing productive work in a typical computer desktop environment: writing emails, clicking on buttons, clicking on checkboxes, etc. Throughout, the player receives encouragement and promotions to enhance a sense of value and progress. The disaffective computing position here lies in the representation of a very real and potentially disaffecting future in which our power relationship with technology is, in many ways, reversed. The game is used to represent this future not only conceptually, but experientially.
Play It is as if you were doing work online in your browser.
View the It is as if you were doing work press kit.
View the It is as if you were doing work source code and process documentation.
Screenshot of It is as if you were doing work during play.
Trailer for It is as if you were doing work, including footage of play.
It is as if you were playing chess (2016)
A chess game in which the player is invited to pretend to play chess rather than actually play. An abstract interface instructs the player in how to drag imagined chess pieces in chess-style movements without actually considering the content of the move. It also instructs them on how to make facial expressions and other gestures to enhance the appearance of deep thought and engagement. The disaffective computing position here is in the creation of software aimed at solving a problem humans may face in a highly technology-driven age: the need to constantly engage with software. Here the software does all the work for the player, who can finally relax instead of needing to think and drive the interactions forward. These ideas are related to another work MANIFEST, not presented in the portfolio.
Play It is as if you were playing chess online in your browser.
View the It is as if you were playing chess press kit.
Screenshot of It is as if you were playing chess during play.
Full play-through of It is as if you were playing chess (a minute or so will give you the idea, however).
v r 2 (2016)
A game set in a 3D virtual museum based on the Marfa installation of Donald Judd's 100 untitled works in mill aluminum. Here the player is presented with a series of nondescript cubes containing diverse virtual objects and entities. This situation functions as a form of disaffective computing primarily in the way it withholds information from the player. Players can usually expect to be the most powerful entity in the environments they enter, but here the idea of computation within videogames as being chiefly a tool for human pleasure, efficacy and fantasy is denied. Further, the existence of the hidden objects in the absence of a human observer raises questions about human versus computational primacy in interpreting digital media.
Play v r 2 online in your browser.
Download v r 2 for Mac.
Download v r 2 for Windows.
View the v r 2 press kit.
Screenshot of v r 2 during play.
Trailer for v r 2, including footage of play.
Disaffective Computing #1: Not-Food (2016)
An installation work comprised of two laptop computers "sitting" on chairs in a gallery space to evoke a sense of casual conversation. The computers have emoticons for faces and both present separate monologues and a series of images and texts addressing the superiority of computers compared with humans. The basis of this assertion is that computers do not require food to live. The installation specifically excludes the audience by offering no interactivity despite the usual role of computers as tools for humans. The project is therefore an instance of disaffective computing by its reworking of traditional power relationships between humans as computers: here the computer refuses to be a tool, shows indifference to humans, and even has opinions about the superiority of its own being. This idea of indifference is mirrored in Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: CPU Edition!, a game that plays itself, not presented in this portfolio.
A view of the installation at the BLITZ gallery exhibition "You Are What You Eat". (Image via Times of Malta)
A view of a prototype of the installation. (Courtesy of the artist.)
A video of a prototype of the installation. (Courtesty of the artist.)
Best Chess (2015)
An online chess game in which the player is invited to make the first move as white. When the move is made, the computer, playing as back, begins to solve chess in order to calculate its response. In other words, the software literally has an implementation of a brute force search of all possible moves in chess to determine its next appropriate move. If it were to complete its search, black would then either make its move knowing it would win, offer a draw immediately knowing it is the only possible outcome, or resign, knowing it cannot win against perfect play. The disaffective computing position here concerns a representation both of the power of computation in comparison to human abilities (a computer can technically solve chess, unlike a human), but also the vulnerability and fragility of technology (a computer cannot solve chess because it would deteriorate before making even a fraction of the calculations required). This tension is mirrored in other works not included in this portfolio such as ZORBA and Durations.
Play Best Chess online in your browser.
View the Best Chess press kit.
Best Chess gameplay.